The California Festival of Speed is one of the largest supercar gatherings in the southwest, and this past weekend’s event was one for the books. Members from our sister site, Corvette Forum, came out to represent their marque and flex their horsepower on the road course configuration at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana.

Finding a C7 Z06 in the wild is a challenge, but with the Southern California sun shining brightly and an opportunity to get some sideways G’s on the “roval,” two Z06’s came out to give us a show.

The Z06 looked right at home on the track and sounded like America, if America had an official sound.

Our friends at Internet Brands Automotive Group had a booth in the vendor midway and greeted forum members and new friends throughout the day. They also brought along a limited-production, 600 horsepower NISMO GT-R.

Of course, no car event is complete without the Falken Tire trailer and their lovely spokesmodels.

If you didn’t bring a car for the track, you could still get behind the wheel of a race car thanks to Race Room and their driving simulators.

The California Festival of Speed was a great opportunity to catch up with old friends and make some new ones. I’m excited to see what next year has in store for the SoCal car scene.

TEAM FALKEN LOOKS TO DEFEND ITS VICTORY AT PETIT LE MANS IN TUDOR UNITED SPORTSCAR SEASON FINALE

As the dust settles on the TUDOR United Sports Car Lone Star Le Mans race held at the Circuit of the Americas, Team Falken packed up its Porsche 911 RSR after an 8th place finish in the GTLM class and headed back to its race headquarters in Indianapolis. The respite will be short as the team, managed by Derrick Walker with drivers Wolf Henzler and Bryan Sellers, will begin preparation to defend its 2013 win at the TUDOR United Sports Car Petit Le Mans 10-hour race at Road Atlanta.

Results from the TUDOR season have been mixed, but Team Falken – a leader in high performance on- and off-road tires for both cars and trucks – has continued to push forward, most recently earning a second place at VIRginia International Raceway based in part on brilliant pit strategy.

According to Manager Walker, the “thought behind our team is never give up. The team, our drivers, engineers, everyone is chasing what we call the ‘magic dragon’; whether it’s the grip you need or the balance. Today, we did everything we could; COTA is a great track; a super design, which has made it one of the most difficult tracks in America. The amount of grip level you have, the surface, the temperature changes that go on here make it a difficult place to set up a car. We didn’t come away with a podium but we will take full marks for sticking with it and giving it everything we’ve got. We had great stops and Bryan and Wolf did a heck of a job.”

Walker continued: “We’ll move to Atlanta, where we just held a great test, and keep our strategy on the baseline we’ve previously established. We look forward to a strong performance once again at Road Atlanta.”

In just two weeks – on October 2-4 – the final race of the 2014 TUDOR United SportsCar Championship is the 10-hour Petit Le Mans at the 2.5-mile Road Atlanta in Braselton, GA. Team Falken will add a third driver to its line-up.

On Friday, February 7, 2014, over 35,000 fans will be gathering on the public lands of Johnson Valley, California for the 8th Annual King of the Hammers, the “toughest one-day off-road race on the planet.”

More than 300 teams will be competing in a variety of vehicles across a course that contains open desert plains and technical rock crawling.

Check out the highlight reel from last year:

Photo courtesy Falken Tire

We’ll be keeping our eye on driver and TV personality Jessi Combs (Overhaulin’, Mythbusters, All Girls Garage) as she competes in the new Spec 4700 class in her Jeep Wrangler-bodied tube chassis fitted with factory-supported Hemi motors and running on Falken’s new 37-inch M/T-series tires. In 2013, Combs became “the fastest woman on four wheels” with a land speed record of 392.954 MPH, and continues her racing pedigree as the newest addition to Falken Tire’s roster of factory-supported drivers. The Spec 4700 class will race on Thursday, February 6, 2014 as part of the Every Man Challenge event.

Festivities will be taking place all throughout this week in “Hammertown” (Johnson Valley, CA) and if you’re not able to make it out in person, you can watch all the action online HERE.